


Damaged Goods

by cuethe_pulse



Category: Gravitation
Genre: Canon - Manga, M/M, Minor substance abuse, Past Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 21:05:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuethe_pulse/pseuds/cuethe_pulse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eiri’s revelations are never pleasant. Takes place some undetermined time between the end of Volume 4 and the second chapter of Volume 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Damaged Goods

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a weeklong drabble-a-day project I’m doing with the [girlfriend](http://archiveofourown.org/users/pennysparkle/pseuds/pennysparkle). (Her fic is [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/944823).)  
> Today’s prompt was “bruise”.

The apple in his hand has a large brown spot and when Eiri’s suffering from insomnia at two in the morning, that’s enough to completely captivate him. Mildly disoriented from a minor overdose of his medication, he watches it as if waiting for it to change shape, like a parade of clouds above his head when he’s lying on his back in Central Park when he’s sixteen and he’s pointing them out to the tutor lying beside him—a moth, a bus, an open mouth looking for something to swallow.

When he touches the fruit, the tender skin gives beneath his finger and Shuichi’s hips were bruised brown and purple but Eiri still fucked him the night they came home from his family’s temple, fucked him hard like he always did, like nothing had happened, and Shuichi didn’t stop him. Shuichi didn’t even wince, didn’t tremble with anything but happiness when he threw his arms around Eiri’s neck and urged him on with parted lips and eyes half open. 

Shuichi opened up for him when rape was still colored on his body. And Eiri, years after New York and rough hands unbuckling his belt, still keeps himself closed.

Shuichi, his Shuichi, with all his tears and whines and pouts and melodramatic song lyrics and the way he can never stay mad and how easily he falls apart when Eiri kisses him and how quickly and stupidly and impossibly he fell in love—that Shuichi is stronger than him. 

And why would someone so strong go through something so horrible for someone so weak, because that’s what he is, he’s weak, he doesn’t even have bruises to feel, not real ones, but he feels them all the same and he won’t let Shuichi touch them because they still belong to someone else. 

Shuichi’s belong to him. He lends them to Eiri when they’re in bed and he threads his fingers through Eiri’s hair and calls out to him, but they’re his. He owns them and he doesn’t give them control. He doesn’t forget to eat because of them, doesn’t see things in the shadows, doesn’t jump at the sound of cicadas, he doesn’t change his name because of them. 

He’s still just Shuichi. And Eiri doesn’t want him because he doesn’t deserve him. 

When he cuts the apple into slices, he swears it bleeds all over, and he spends the rest of the night cleaning his kitchen counters.


End file.
